Student Reflection

by Susannah Koch

Since my last post about the community health fair, things have really died down in terms of the amount of work I have been doing for Provena. I was unable to go to the heath fair at Garden Hills School in Urbana the weekend after the community health fair and have been mainly doing organizational work with Alejandra. She has been very busy with classes and conferences in Chicago about translation services. It is exciting to see that she is continuing her education and trying to make the language services department as successful as possible. I have grown to admire and respect Alejandra very much because she has such passion for what she does. I hope to one day be as passionate about my career as she is about hers.

The work that I have been doing is in relation to the organization of the office and making the whole organization run smoother. Although this work is not glamorous, it is important to realize the significance of secretarial and organizational tasks because they allow the more important things to be executed successfully and for a larger number of patients to be helped in less time. I do not mind helping with the small things because Alejandra and I talk about our lives, the program, how to make it better and the language of Spanish. I learned that the word “ordenador” is only used in Spain and was strange for me to use with Alejandra. It is interesting to learn these small differences because understanding the cultural differences between dialects makes you a better speaker.

I hope to continue working at Provena next semester, even if it is just a general hospital volunteer because I have seen how wonderful and caring the entire staff is. Having worked at Carle hospital, I can attest to the importance of helpful staff and the process has a lot less stressful at Provena. I appreciate this aspect because we are all so busy and it is hard to fit everything in sometimes. I also hope to take Spanish 332 spring semester of next year and potentially continue my work with the language services team at Provena. I am excited to see the progress the program will have made by then and to continue helping the community.